“Getting the musicians and management to understand and adapt to the new media world is probably the single biggest challenge faced by the industry,” said Stensrud, whose company also has produced apps for the San Diego Opera, Los Angeles public radio station KUSC, American Public Media's “Performance Today” and Philadelphia's Curtis Institute of Music.

At least one orchestra, the Berlin Philharmonic, is going beyond immediate downloads and charging forward with live streaming. For 149 euros (about $215) you can subscribe to the Philharmonic's “Digital Concert Hall” and receive live, streaming audio and video from the orchestra's regular-season concerts.

“I would be comfortable with our orchestra doing that,” said San Diego's Gill. “But for some reason in America, there are just so many issues people have. Number one, it becomes quality; number two, it becomes, are you giving something away for nothing? Number three, how is it being handled, distributed?”

InstantEncore does not charge for access to its Web site, and more than 32,000 “fans” have signed up, Drakos said. But it does charge musicians and organizations, on a sliding scale depending on size, for its apps and other Web tools. It also accepts advertising.

“We've now got over 1,000 partners and over 100 revenue-producing partners,” said Stensrud, whose five-person company is not yet profitable. “We need 1,000 revenue-producing partners to break even, but at the rate we're growing right now, I predict we're within 18 months of that.”

For the orchestra, there's no money to be made on its iPhone app or its digital downloads. It's about exposure and connection.

“We don't want to have it as a sales tool, per se,” Gill said. “We want to have something that creates a relationship with the public, that engages them. “That's the thing. Our big donors have been so generous with us. What we want to do with our centennial coming up, starting July 1 of 2010, is we want this community to really get behind their orchestra. We need to lay down a stable environment that can keep us for another 100 years.”